The Rand Paul plagiarism accusation is absurd

I bring this up not because it's inherently political, which it's not, even though Paul is somewhat of a polarizing figure and a serious candidate to be our next president. I bring it up because it's pretty relevant to people who write in the 21st century.

Background: Paul was giving a speech about, I believe, genetic engineering of some sort. He compared it to the movie "Gattaca." In describing the plot of "Gattaca," he quoted from Wikipedia. Except he didn't credit Wikipedia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/us/politics/senator-rand-paul-is-accused-of-plagiarizing-his-lines-from-wikipedia.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

The speech — which he delivered Monday at Liberty University in Virginia on behalf of the Republican candidate for governor, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II — contained this line: “In the not-too-distant future, eugenics is common, and DNA plays a primary role in determining your social class.”

The Wikipedia entry reads: “In ‘the not-too-distant future,’ liberal eugenics is common, and DNA plays the primary role in determining social class.”

If he were writing a newspaper piece, I assume that Paul would have put quotes around the passage, or paraphrased it and perhaps said, "according to Wikipedia." In a speech, though, that would have been awfully clunky to do. He wasn't co-opting James Joyce. He was giving the elevator summary of a 15-year-old movie.

Anyway, to the larger point, the plagiarism police are getting a little bit out of control. Earlier in the month, a woman accused author Dave Eggers of "plagiarizing" her non-fiction book because his novel contained settings that were similar. And at some point, it seems OK to take something like a movie plot or blunt fact, un-stylisticly written, without attribution. I would think that politicians would be particularly susceptible to this, because so many of them were lawyers, where using boilerplate is commonplace and accepted.

 

Lifting material you didn't write and crediting it as your own (or not crediting the source) is plagiarism, pure and simple.

 

Common sense has to prevail at some point.

 

Right. And that definition of plagiarism is common sense.

 

A random Wikipedia passage is an unowned amalgam of many different "content editors."

 

He wasn't giving an "elevator summary" he was quoting someone else's material as his own.

Seems to me, if you don't want to be accused of plagiarism, don't plagiarize.

 

Stoolman must be sleeping or this thread would have been locked
by now.

It would be fun if Paul ends up running against Biden in 2016.
The plagiarizer accusations would balance each other out.

BTW where is Biden? He seems to be missing in action.

 

Random question: Since anybody can edit a Wikipedia page, why should you have to credit anyone?

He's reading part of a movie summary. People need to get a grip.

 

He apparently was at this photo op with Angela Merkel in an attempt to smooth the waters:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/world/europe/tap-on-merkel-provides-peek-at-vast-spy-net.html?ref=todayspaper

 

I like what I've seen from Paul. I hope he runs in 2016.

 

Me too. I like politicians that are willing to go against the grain and
ask provocative questions. Hell someone has to since the national
media has for the most part become sheep and stenographers.

 

Lynn Hoppes doesn't know what the big deal is:

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/91192/